Summary of March 2, 2015 class by volunteer Nick Thorp and course coordinator Julie Grialou
The final week of the 2015 fire ecology conservation course coincided with what feels like an early
spring in the valley. With daytime temperatures well above freezing for
several weeks, snow melting rapidly, and shoots of grass popping up, a
sense of the the change of seasons and the coming summer is growing.
With summer comes fire season and everybody’s question of what this year
will hold following the Carlton Complex fire of 2014. The answer to
that question follows the theme of the course: it’s complex.
Richy
Harrod, Fire Management Specialist with the Okanogan-Wenatchee National
Forest, joined the class to present his thoughts on what the future may
hold for the Methow and ways that we as a community can live with fire.
Following an extreme fire event like the Carlton Complex, there is
generally a low risk for fire in burned areas. Plants and grasses will
begin to repopulate these areas in the next several years without much
fuel to allow for flammable conditions. It is not until about 15 years
after a fire that dense shrubs will establish and a real fire danger
returns. While this may ring true for some burned forests in the Methow
from the Carlton Complex fires, other areas are at risk or will
potentially be at risk in the future.
Last year’s
fires, combined with the Tripod and other large fire events in recent
history, have burned from Canada to the Columbia River. But large
tracts of land and forests on the western side of the Valley from the
Twisp River drainage down to Lake Chelan have not burned in many years.
These areas are home to dense, homogenous forests: prime environment
for large, intense fire events. Coupled with the threat of cheatgrass, a
highly invasive and flammable grass that can take over burned
shub-steppe landscapes following a fire, the danger for fires in 2015
remains present.
So how do we ensure that people and
structures are safe while allowing fire to play its natural role in
surrounding lands and forest? According to Richy, it takes everybody
from the Forest Service, to landowners, to communities, in partnership,
to achieve that this goal. From a high level perspective, forest
restoration is key and several overarching strategies that impact each
other need to be at play including:
* Management of whole landscapes
* Management for patterns
* Restoration of native fire regimes
* Placing fire treatments in strategic places
* Restoration of natural patches in landscape
* Restoration of fire tolerant structures like Ponderosa Pine
* Long term planning
As
the Okanogan-Wenatchee Forest District builds and puts forth plans to include
these approaches, each year they are continuing to address the identification
and direct treatment of high priority areas, and high fire threat areas. To
do so the Forest Service does a detailed characterization and analysis
of a watershed broken down in many small sections based on
differences in plant type, age, size, tree density, topography, and
more. Combined with historical data and future projections, the Forest
Service is able to determine priority areas for treatment.
While
the Forest Service is working in the woods to conduct fire treatment,
landowners and communities can also do their part to protect homes and
developed areas. Just as the Forest Service builds fire lines to block
fire progression, homeowners should be doing the same to their
property. Removing flammable material and sources of ignition from
within 30 feet of a home, keeping an irrigated lawn around homes, and
ensuring trees within 70 feet of a home are planted sparingly can all go a long way to protect
property. Firewise provides more detailed information and
recommendations.
To truly protect homes and people, the
old saying rings true: it takes a village. Communities and their
residents need to work together with each other and with entities like
the Forest Service and Department of Natural Resources. Collaborative
planning and fire prevention treatment by people, communities, the
private sector, and the public sector are key to living with fire.
